I’m Passionate about Leadership

I’m passionate about leadership. I like being a leader, I like teaching the next generation of leaders and helping them discover their potential. I like working alongside people to create a greater good. I love the opportunity each summer to teach our SALT (Skills And Leadership Training) campers about leadership and teamwork. To be able to give them opportunities to try out their leadership abilities and even the chance to “fail with dignity” is a great privilege. I want them to become leaders not just at camp, but in their youth groups, sports clubs, schools, homes, communities and more.

SALT #1 2012

Summer camp is one of the very few industries where we entrust our operations to 18 to 20-something leaders and 15-17 year old staff. BUT, what a great time to be learning and practicing their leadership skills and abilities. It’s a great responsibility to lead a group of 8 campers through activities, games, meals, camp life and cabin devotions. Our staff rise through the ranks of summer staff from kitchen or service to be cabin leaders, SALT leaders and then to leadership staff. Summer leadership staff learns to lead the younger staff and their peers by being responsible for program or waterfront or foodservice or staff community. I would be greatly pleased if the next Camp Widjiitiwin director was one of these staff on leadership now.

My favourite quote about potential has long been, “You can always cut open the apple and find out how many seeds are inside, but there’s no way you can cut the seed and find out how many apples are in it.” I’m excited to find out how my investment in youth and young adults and their investment in others will create a chain reaction of leadership and change in our camping community, our communities at large and our nation. I can only imagine where these new leaders will go. 

Camp Widjiitiwin – the way camp was meant to be… relational, central, natural, reaching out, a loving community focused on Christ. It’s like coming home, it’s my camp!

What Makes Camp Widjiitiwin Unique?

Camp Widjiitiwin – the way camp was meant to be… relational, central, natural, reaching out, a loving community focused on Christ. It’s like coming home, it’s my camp!

When camp is over at the end of the summer and the campers and staff all go home it isn’t so much the waterslide, ropes course, games or archery that campers will remember the most. It’s the people, the cabin leaders and staff that the campers will look up to as heroes and an example of what it means to be a Christ follower. Our goal is to find and bring to camp the best Christian young people to lead and work at Widji.

Widjiitiwin is:

·        Relational – it’s all about relationships. The ones between camper and cabin leaders and other staff, between campers and between staff. We focus on building a solid relationship with each camper, knowing their names, learning about who they, becoming friends and discovering how we can help them develop as people. One thing missing for many kids and youth is someone who will listen. We’re there for them.

·        Central – We practice centralized camping where we are together as a community many times during the day. We’re together at all meals, two all camp games every day, chapels and evening games or program. We do camp together!

·        Natural – Widji is in a natural environment of Muskoka, Ontario along a river that shows us the Creator in the wonder of His creation. From the deer family that visits us morning and evening, to the skunks, raccoons and the occasional bear wandering through camp to being able to see an amazing expanse of stars you can see God.

·        Reaching out – going out beyond our circle of influence to teach others about the good news of Jesus and that He came to die for us to be reconciled back to God. We’re not pushy about our message, but seek to show how Jesus makes a difference in our lives as we live them out with the campers for a week or more.

·        A loving community – we love kids and youth, we want the best for them and believe that through camp we can create life-changing experiences.

·        Focused on Christ – we exist to be ambassadors for Christ to children and youth. It’s our job to demonstrate the gospel message through all the activities, programs and people at Camp Widjiitiwin.

Themes aren’t unique to Widji, but they are becoming bigger and bigger here. Themes have become an integral part of camp. We’re building bigger props and incorporating theme into all aspects of camp including our Friday theme days.

We do a lot of more traditional camp activities and we’re together as a whole camp a lot. We have at least two all camp games every day, we’re together for camp chapels, we have a weekly camp pastor to speak at chapel and who is available to campers and staff. Camp pastors also are a somewhat unique feature at Widji. He does a morning thought at breakfast to set our day in the right direction. We have our own unique game called Widjiitiwin Basketball that is a combination of football, basketball, soccer and rugby.

It’s like coming home, it’s my camp!

Double Vision & Humility

For over six months I have worked through and lived with having double vision. It’s not very much fun. The doctors have no idea why I’m seeing double. Mostly it is relegated to my right peripheral vision, but there are bad days when I see double throughout my field of vision. I don’t drive on those days. Some days I can feel my right eye, which is the one not tracking properly. It’s a very odd feeling.

I have learned so much about my eyes and the brain. The doctor tells me that the double vision is likely throughout my whole vision all the time, but the brain compensates and pushes it as far to the right as possible. That’s amazing! God has certainly designed us well.

I don’t do well at not being a strong person. I am usually fiercely independent and prefer not to rely on others for what I can for myself. Unfortunately, I discovered that I wasn't able to do as much as I usually would or wanted to do. It has been an interesting journey. I still see double and I'm hoping to find some answers soon. Here are some of the lessons I have learned…

• A sense of humility as I have had to depend on others to do some things that I can normally do myself. 
• Learning to let others do tasks that I would normally do. This past summer I had a great leadership team working for me at Camp Widjiitiwin that allowed me to take the down time that I needed. 
• I learned when to realize I was coming to the point of doing too much and when to relax. Sometimes this was evident by my having to have someone drive me home as I couldn’t see well enough to drive. 
• My inabilities allowed others to step up and discover that they were capable of more and we accomplished great things at camp things summer.  
• I have learned to wait somewhat patiently. Still working on that one, but that's another blog. 
• I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14